Winsor wrote eight novels, but only the first made a lasting impression on the publishing world. “As far as I was concerned, it was the end of the world,” Winsor told the Chicago Tribune after Porter’s death. They married in 1956 and remained together until his death in 1975. Porter, the former head of the Federal Communications Commission, who appears to have been her favorite. Soon after her divorce from Shaw, Winsor married her lawyer, Arnold Krakower. Winsor followed Ava Gardner on that list. Her second husband, big band leader Artie Shaw, had his own long history of spouses. Gossip columnists suggested that Winsor’s personal life was the inspiration for the heroine of her novel. Otto Preminger directed the movie, released in 1947, with Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde in the leading roles. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the screen rights within a month of the book’s publication. “Forever Amber” sold 100,000 copies its first week in bookstores. The Hays Office, the morality board for the movie business, condemned the book, hoping to block a Hollywood rendition.Ĭriticism only encouraged sales. “Forever Amber” was banned in 14 states, starting with Massachusetts, where the attorney general counted 70 references to sexual intercourse, 39 illegitimate pregnancies and 10 abortions and recommended an adding machine for anyone who hoped to keep track of Amber’s many suitors. It also made her the center of controversy. She earned a $50,000 advance from her publisher, Macmillan Co., and received $200,000 for the movie rights.

“One of them was that I was going to write a bestseller.”īorn in Olivia, Minn., in 1919 and raised in Berkeley, she attended UC Berkeley and married Herwig, a star of the football team, while they were students. “When I was 18, I wrote a list of things I was going to do with my life,” she said in an interview with P.M., a New York City-based newspaper published during the 1940s. She was 25 when the book was published and later said she had big plans for it from the start. Winsor wrote six drafts before she was satisfied with the results.

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